The attorney general for the District of Columbia is the latest to jump into an investigation of Trump’s inaugural committee, subpoenaing the committee this week over whether it “improperly provided private benefit,” the New York Times reports.
The subpoena reportedly asks for information regarding the roles that Ivanka Trump, Donald Trump Jr., and Eric Trump may have had on the inaugural committee. It also seeks information regarding payments to the Trump International Hotel and the Trump Organization, per the New York Times.
The request reportedly comes as part of an investigation into whether money was “wasted, mismanaged and/or improperly provided private benefit, causing the committee to exceed or abuse its authority or act contrary to its nonprofit purpose.”
The New Jersey Attorney General sent a civil subpoena to the committee earlier this month, after federal prosecutors for the Southern District of New York sent a wide-ranging subpoena to the inaugural committee on Feb. 4, asking for an array of documents.
The D.C. subpoena reportedly follows on the SDNY request in asking whether any agreements existed whereby donors paid vendors directly for services provided to the inaugural committee.
Trump’s inauguration took in a record-breaking $107 million haul, nearly twice as much as any previous one.
And it was the most pathetic inaugural in history. They certainly didn’t show the money.
The evidence so far shows that they were funneling donor money into the Trump Organization’s coffers and helping foreign and possibly criminal interests to subvert the law to buy access. It also appears they were very disorganized and weren’t very careful in covering their tracks. Imagine that.
Maybe it’s the kids’ time in the barrel. I hope so. They were in on all the corruption and are benefiting from it today.
Some words to shove in Donald Trump’s face, Part DXCVIII
by digby
October 28, 2016 in Cedar Rapids, IA
“As you’ve heard, earlier today the FBI after discovering new emails is reopening their investigation into Hillary Clinton… The investigation is the biggest political scandal since Watergate and it’s everybody’s hope that justice at last can be delivered.”
November 2, 2016 in Miami, FL
“If Hillary Clinton were to be elected, it would create an unprecedented and protracted constitutional crisis. Haven’t we just been through a lot with the Clintons, right?”
November 2, 2016 in Orlando, FL
“Hillary is likely to be under investigation for many years, probably concluding in a criminal trial.”
November 4, 2016 in Atkinson, NH
“She’ll be under investigation for years. She’ll be with trials. Our country, we have to get back to work.”
November 4, 2016 in Wilmington, OH
“Hillary has engaged in a criminal massive enterprise and cover-ups like probably nobody ever before.”
November 5, 2016 in Reno, NV
“There’s virtually no doubt that FBI Director Comey and the great, great special agents of the FBI will be able to collect more than enough evidence to garner indictments against Hillary Clinton and her inner circle, despite her efforts to disparage them and to discredit them. If she were to win this election, it would create an unprecedented constitutional crisis. In that situation, we could very well have a sitting president under felony indictment and ultimately a criminal trial.” November 5, 2016 in Denver, CO
“Her current scandals and controversies will continue throughout her presidency and we will make it honestly, look, it’s gonna be virtually impossible for her to govern. Now, the Republicans have talked very tough and the Democrats. It’s gonna be just another mess for another four years, folks. A mess. We’ve got to get back to work, right? I mean, we have to get back to work.”
November 6 in Minneapolis, MN
“First thing you should do is get rid of Clinton. Hillary Clinton will be under investigation for a long, long time for her many crimes against our nation, our people, our democracy, likely concluding in a criminal trial.” November 6 in Moon Township, PA
“The investigations into her crimes will go on for a long, long time. The rank and file special agents at the FBI won’t let her get away with these terrible crimes, including the deletion of 33,000 emails after receiving a congressional subpoena. Right now, she’s being protected by a rigged system.”
Senior Republican lawmakers are openly discussing the prospect of impeaching Hillary Clinton should she win the presidency, a stark indication that partisan warfare over her tenure as secretary of state will not end on Election Day.
Chairmen of two congressional committees said in media interviews this week they believe Clinton committed impeachable offenses in setting up and using a private email server for official State Department business.
And a third senior Republican, the chairman of a House Judiciary subcommittee, told The Washington Post he is personally convinced Clinton should be impeached for influence peddling involving her family foundation. He favors further congressional investigation into that matter.
“It is my honest opinion that the Clinton Foundation represents potentially one of the greatest examples of political corruption in American history,” said Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), who leads the Constitution and Civil Justice subcommittee. “Now that perspective may be disproven, time will tell. But given that conviction on my part, I think all options are definitely on the table.”
The impeachment talk is the latest sign that Clinton will not be handed a clean slate — let alone an extended honeymoon — by Republican lawmakers should she win the presidency.
He wasn’t wrong, really. The Republicans were planning to initiate impeachment proceedings against Clinton immediately after the election.
But you’d think he would have realized that what was good for the gander would be good for the goose, but he doesn’t really realize anything so this is just another example of projection. And I suppose it’s one reason his feral survival instinct has led him to concentrate solely on keeping his base with him. It’s how he will survive an impeachment trial in the Senate.
But he’s running for president again and impeachment or not, the investigative hell of a second term will be worse than anything Hillary Clinton could have ever contemplated.
It’s not as if he hasn’t been asking for it from the beginning.
They’re just wearing their white slip on the outside now
by digby
We know this guy is a flat-out racist, and a corrupt one to boot. In many ways he was a precursor to Trump. But he’s just completely letting it all hang out now:
Former Gov. Paul LePage (R) tore apart a bill currently in the Maine state legislature that proposes essentially eliminating the Electoral College in favor of the popular vote because it would only “be minorities that elect” the President.
According to a Thursday Maine Beacon report, LePage told local radio station WVOM that the legislation would render him and other whites “a forgotten people.”
“Actually what would happen if they do what they say they’re gonna do is white people will not have anything to say,” LePage said. “It’s only going to be the minorities that would elect. It would be California, Texas, Florida.”
LePage has made some unrelated headlines lately, allegedly just finding out that his administration (thus, the taxpayers) spent $1,100 per night on Trump hotel rooms and contending that a lost 2018 House race was a “stolen election.”
Considering how racist he was in office, it’s hard to believe that being a private citizen has actually freed him up to really say what’s on his mind. But let’s not kid ourselves. The Kris Kobachs and Trumps of this country are on exactly the same page. They just don’t put it in quite such obvious terms. But I can see Trump saying exactly the same thing before too long. This is the subtext of his anti-immigrant “message.” At some point he’ll drop any pretense and just start saying it right out loud.
Of course Trump is the one who told Gaetz to threaten Cohen and say his wife was going to be unfaithful to him while he is in prison. Of course he was:
President Trump called @mattgaetz last night from Hanoi to talk the Cohen testimony and the threats (since rescinded) Gaetz made about Cohen. "I was happy to do it for you. You just keep killing it," Gaetz was heard telling him. (Gaetz told me he doesn't discuss calls w/POTUS)— Edward-Isaac Dovere (@IsaacDovere) February 28, 2019
tracking timing: the tweet in which Gaetz said he apologized to Cohen was sent *after* he talked to Trump and said he was happy to do it. (I offered Gaetz several chances to refute the comment to Trump, but he left it at saying he doesn't discuss conversations with Trump.)— Edward-Isaac Dovere (@IsaacDovere) February 28, 2019
After his Tuesday tweet, Gaetz was asked if he spoke to Trump about the Cohen allegations he was making, and Gaetz said: “I think the President’s a little busy saving us from nuclear war on the Korean Peninsula to be worried about my Twitter feed.” https://t.co/6CbjUxbV8Z— Manu Raju (@mkraju) February 28, 2019
Gaetz told me two days ago he "100 percent" did not talk to anyone in the White House about his threat to Cohen prior to tweeting it https://t.co/rGrBqa88Gx— Sam Stein (@samstein) February 28, 2019
It would be nice if one of the marginally sane Fox News employees like Chris Wallace would bring this up to Gaetz next time his on there. But they won’t.
I heard somewhere that Gaetz was in the hearing room yesterday and had begged for the chance to get five minutes even though he isn’t on the committee. Obviously, Cummings wasn’t going to let him do that and it’s telling that this disgusting gambit wasn’t taken up by Mark Meadows who instead dragged out Lynn Patten to prove that Trump isn’t a racist. Apparently, this was a bridge too far even for him.
The point of all this, of course, is that Gaetz got it out there, even if he had to apologize for it later and possibly even face sanctions. That’s what a henchman does. Fortunately, Cohen didn’t seem to be rattled by it. After all, he used to be the top henchman himself. He couldn’t have been surprised by it.
First the total failure of the border wall negotiations. Now this:
President Trump and Kim Jong-un, North Korea’s leader, abruptly ended their second summit meeting on Thursday after talks collapsed with the two leaders failing to agree on any steps toward nuclear disarmament or measures to ease tensions on the Korean Peninsula.
“Sometimes you have to walk,” Mr. Trump said at an afternoon news conference in Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam.
He said Mr. Kim had offered to dismantle the North’s most important nuclear facility if the United States lifted the harsh sanctions imposed on his nation — but would not commit to do the same for other elements of its weapons program. That, Mr. Trump said, was a dealbreaker.
“It was about the sanctions,” Mr. Trump said. “Basically they wanted the sanctions lifted in their entirety, but we couldn’t do that.”
The premature end to the negotiations leaves the unusual rapprochement between the United States and North Korea that has unfolded for most of a year at a deadlock, with the North retaining both its nuclear arsenal and facilities believed to be producing additional fissile material for warheads.
It also represents a major setback at a difficult political moment for Mr. Trump, who has long presented himself as a tough negotiator capable of bringing adversaries into a deal and had made North Korea the signature diplomatic initiative of his presidency.
Golly, maybe he isn’t the greatest negotiator in the world after all.
Seriously, this is why these big summits are usually choreographed in advance with nothing left to decide once the principles get there. You don’t want this to happen, especially when nuclear arms deals are in the balance. It’s not a good look.
Of course, we should probably be happy that Trump didn’t decide to give Kim nuclear weapons as a token of his affection…
The Emotional Truth of Corruption in Washington By Spocko
I watched the Cohen hearings with the Academy Awards still fresh in my mind. No awards will be given for the GOP congress people who expressed how disgusting it is that they had to listen to a (shutter) Liar.
Hearings are performances designed to tell a story. Cohen is acting as Trump’s John Dean, cast by Lanny Davis.
Of course John Dean the person is very different from John Dean the President’s lawyer testifying against his boss. I don’t know Dean, but I can’t imagine him making “at least 500” threats against people on behalf of the President. That sounds more like a job for creepy G. Gordon Liddy.
The Democrats are working this story with facts, which is good. Trump is a corrupt bully, who has put his need for money, fame and power first. Acting this way before running for office makes him a standard corrupt rich guy. But acting this way as President is a bigger offense, one that hurts our entire country.
Cohen is telling the story of a selfish person who loves money. But we need more to get to the emotional truth of just how horrible Trump is for America in his position right now.
Who is Trump hurting with his actions?
I can say, “The American People” but that’s a bit too broad. If I want to start with specifics I point to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, two women who have been threatened by Trump via Cohen,
But I also think of all the small businesses and contractors that Trump screwed over using threats before he became President. Some of those people might have entered into contracts with him with their eyes open, knowing of his reputation, but were Americans really aware of just how horrible he was?
During the campaign Trump said he would use his knowledge of negotiation to get the best deals for America, some people liked that and thought, “Well he may be a crook, but now he’ll be OUR crook!” But Trump hasn’t been putting the American people first. His attitude is, ‘What’s good for Trump’s Businesses is Good For America.”
Trump’s corruption while in office matters. It turns out that the founders KNEW human nature and they understood there have always been rich people who want to use the power of government to obtain profit for themselves.
“Corruption is when people in public office use that public office for private or selfish ends.” —Zephyr Teachout on Why Is This Happening podcast with Chris Hayes, August 21, 2018
Hamilton in “The Federalist Papers,” describes the Constitutional Convention saying, we did everything we could to erect every practicable obstacle to corruption. Because that’s the threat, we’re not gonna have self-government if we don’t protect against corruption. Or as somebody else said, if we don’t protect against corruption we will soon be at an end.
“So the job of building structures, building a constitutional structure, is not just to punish those who behave badly but actually to protect people from their own temptations. ”
America has always struggled with corruption, some periods have been worse than others. I just watched two old movies, Born Yesterday (1950), and Solid Gold Cadillac (1956) that show how Hollywood talked about corruption in an earlier era.
Born Yesterday shows a millionaire junk dealer/business man who goes to Washington and bribes a congressman to get a law passed that will make money for him.
Solid Gold Cadillac shows a board of directors expecting to profit off of defense contracts when their founder goes to Washington to work in government.
In both cases, the men were foiled because they underestimated the competence of the women in the movie.
The men also underestimated people’s need for justice, their desire for fairness under the law, and the work they are willing to do prevent further injustice or harm to others.
Here are two clips from the end of the movie demonstrating the understanding of the writer
Garson Kanin, (a friend of Paddy Chayefsky) how corrupt thugs work and what it takes to control them.
In both of these movies there were self-awareness people who knew they had been comprised and used. Some felt bad about it and changed. Others accepted their fate. How they reacted as the various schemes fell down around them depended on how the person was written.
They both stream on Amazon Prime. I highly recommend Born Yesterday. Judy Holliday won the Oscar for Best Actress for portraying the dumb blond Billie Dawn. In real life Holliday had a 172 IQ. There are so many parallels with Trump’s story it’s spooky. I think every American should watch it. Also read about how Judy Holliday’s dumb blond act outsmarted the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee (Dubbed the Senate’s answer to the HUAC) when she testified before them.
A Corrupt Person Says What?
When some people are caught with their hands in the cookie jar they lie and deny. “I didn’t do it! If I did, where’s your proof?!”
Others, after they get caught, say. “Yah got me, but it’s not a big deal.”
Still others attack the people who arrested them and the “disloyal” people who exposed their lawbreaking.
Some people, when they know they are busted, start cooperating to reduce their sentence. (I suspect some of them also want to stick it to the people that brought them into the scheme.)
When I watched the end of these movies I thought about the Mueller investigation. After the investigation is over, I want appropriate punishments for those who have been found guilty of their various crimes. And, I want things to change to prevent further injustice and harm to our country.
When normal people see the smaller fish getting caught and people paying the price with jail time, they think, “I better not do that!” This is what we want. It’s the reasoning prosecutors use when they say, “We want to send a message to the people, ‘Don’t break the law.'”
Some people–those involved in similar corrupt schemes–think, “How can I not get caught?”
They plan to get trickier when they break the law in the future. They scorn people who get caught, they don’t care about the principles behind the law, just the tricks to avoid technically breaking it. Dick Cheney learned a lot during Tricky Dick’s Presidency, e.g. how not to get caught during the Bush years.
Then there is a group of people who think, “How can we change the law so an action we want to take is no longer illegal?” This is the group of people who have been ascendant since the 1980’s. These people work to change laws, reduce or remove regulations and write model laws just to help themselves. (See the work of ALEC in multiple areas as an example)
Additionally there is a group of people who work to change attitudes about the actions that the laws were created to address.
When you look deeper into these people you can see their emotional truth. These are selfish. They hurt individuals. They plan to use the power of government for their own selfish ends. They are hurting our country. It’s our patriotic act to stop them.
If Republicans on the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday thought they were there to defend the sitting president from a Democrat-led inquiry into his financial crimes, they failed. Instead, they relentlessly challenged Michael Cohen’s credibility as a felon convicted of lying to Congress and conspiring to violate campaign finance laws. One of Cohen’s co-conspirators in the campaign finance felonies, Individual 1, is the president of the United States. But they were too busy attacking Cohen to notice they were undermining Donald Trump.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) summarized the strategy of Republican members for Cohen, saying, “Our colleagues are not upset because you lied to Congress for the president. They’re upset because you stopped lying to Congress for the president.”
Cohen, Trump’s former personal attorney, was not a sympathetic figure. His opening statement focused on his criminal schemes involving Trump and avoided mention of his individual charges for tax evasion and fraud. Republicans on the committee reminded him.
But rage as they might, Republicans failed at making Cohen cower. The amateur bullies faced a seasoned professional. Whatever one thinks of Cohen, his contrition or his credibility, he intimidated people for a living.
Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) asked Cohen how many times he had threatened people (with legal action) for Trump:
“Quite a few times,” Cohen answered.
“50 times?” Speier asked.
“More.”
“100 times?”
“More.”
“200 times?”
“More,” Cohen responded.
Speier asked finally, “500 times?”
“Probably, over the 10 years.”
Republicans were outclassed in the bullying department, and unprepared to defend the president. They failed to rebut Cohen’s testimony and never defended the president from Cohen’s allegations.
Attorney and former federal prosecutor Ken White critiqued both Republicans and Democrats on the panel.
“House Republicans needed a trial lawyer—or even a moderately bright junior-high mock-trial participant—to tell them how to do anything,” White writes in The Atlantic. Cohen did himself few favors as a witness by baiting his interrogators even when they deserved it, White added.
And Democrats?
This was an opportunity to build the outline of a case against Trump. Democrats didn’t. Instead they triumphantly repeated Cohen’s more salacious accusations, speechified, and uncritically embraced Cohen’s I-am-a-sinner-seeking-redemption narrative. They didn’t hurt his credibility, but they utterly squandered the chance to support it.
But perhaps not all. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) in deliberate and sober questioning laid the groundwork for House Democrats to subpoena Trump’s taxes and Trump Organization financial records. Federal prosecutors from the Southern District of New York will likely have them first. SDNY investigations were a real presence in the room on Wednesday and perhaps the greater threat to the Trump Organization.
“Where this ends is a RICO charge in the Southern District of New York,” Cohen’s friend Donny Deutsch told MSNBC’s Ari Melber.
Two quotes from the day stand out. Cohen tied Trump directly to Wikileaks via Roger Stone:
… I was in Mr. Trump’s office when his secretary announced that Roger Stone was on the phone. Mr. Trump put Mr. Stone on the speakerphone. Mr. Stone told Mr. Trump that he had just gotten off the phone with Julian Assange and that Mr. Assange told Mr. Stone that, within a couple of days, there would be a massive dump of emails that would damage Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
Mr. Trump responded by stating to the effect of “wouldn’t that be great.”
It is not criminal, but damaging politically. In the past, Stone has denied the link, Jeffrey Toobin wrote:
“I have no memory of ever talking about WikiLeaks with him,” Stone told me in Fort Lauderdale. Responding to persistent rumors that Mueller has a witness who says he heard Trump and Stone on a speakerphone discussing WikiLeaks, Stone said, “Prove it.”
Cohen is that witness, and perhaps Trump’s secretary too. The danger for Trump now is other Trump Organization employees, although they are few, may see an opening for abandoning a sinking ship, as may White House staff.
Cohen made that danger explicit in a damning statement to Trump’s defenders:
“I did the same thing that you’re doing now for 10 years. I protected Mr Trump for 10 years,” Cohen said. “I can only warn people, the more people follow Mr. Trump, as I did blindly, are going to suffer the consequences that I’m suffering.”
Those words will outlive those of Trump’s defenders. The former Trump “fixer’ delivered them like an oracle in Act 1 of a Greek tragedy. We know what happens in the final act.
COHEN closes with this disconcerting thought: "Given my experience working for Mr. Trump, I fear that if he loses the election in 2020, that there will never be a peaceful transition of power." pic.twitter.com/nm0EvAxAck— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 27, 2019
Me too. He’s already laying the groundwork.
His testimony today drew a picture of a lawless man, now our president, always dancing as fast as he can, likely to do anything to keep himself from finally, at long last, being caught.
Lets hope this is the way it goes:
CUMMINGS ends it with this: "When we're dancing w/the angels the question will be asked, 'in 2019 what did we do to make sure we kept our democracy? Did we stand on the sidelines and say nothing?'… we have got to get back to normal. And with that, this meeting is adjourned." pic.twitter.com/TgDQlqgLvG— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 27, 2019
77 Democrats voted against assault ban in 94 & nearly as many vs Brady Bill in 93. Today’s level of unity would have been unimaginable even a decade ago. But the Dem center of gravity has shifted unequivocally to metropolitan America which enables more unity on issues like this https://t.co/B8nq3LKGnK
The House on Wednesday passed a bill expanding federal background checks for gun purchases and transfers, the first major new firearm restrictions to advance in a generation.
The Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2019, which passed 240-190 with mostly Democratic votes, is unlikely to be considered in the Senate, where Republicans hold a 53-seat majority. President Trump also has issued a veto threat Tuesday for the expanded background checks bill.
But amid loud applause in the House, Democrats and gun-control advocates celebrated Wednesday’s vote as the first significant congressional movement on tightening access to firearms since the 1990s. The outline of the bill approved by the House was first sketched out in the days after the 2012 killing of elementary school students and teachers in Newtown, Conn., only to fail a key Senate test vote months later.
As Brownstein points out in that tweet, until recently gun fetishism was a bipartisan position. That’s changed.
Keep in mind that the gun legislation that the Democrats support would not in any inhibit rural gun owners from buying and owning guns. It’s just that gun fetishists are insistent that they not be regulated in any way.
Isn't it time that Obama release his college records and applications? Boy would that create a mess! He is not who you think.— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 15, 2012
I know it’s shallow but I have to admit that I’m dying to see those school records now:
Fordham University confirms Michael Cohen’s testimony that he threatened legal action if President Donald Trump’s academic records were released.
The former Trump Organization lawyer told congressional investigators that Trump directed him to threaten his high school, colleges and the College Board not to release his grades or SAT scores.
A spokesperson for Fordham, which Trump attended for two years, confirmed to NPR that a representative from the Trump campaign contacted the school toward the beginning of the race asking about the release of school records.
“We told the caller that Fordham is bound by federal law,” the spokesperson told NPR, “and that we could not/would not reveal/share any records.”
The spokesperson said that was the school’s policy regardless of whether the former student was running for office.
After that call, the spokesman said, “Fordham received a follow-up letter from one of Mr. Trump’s attorneys summarizing the call and reminding us that they would take action against the University if we did, in fact, release Mr. Trump’s records.”
Cohen shared with the House Oversight Committee copies of a letter he sent at Trump’s direction threatening civil and criminal actions against those schools if his grades or SAT scores were ever disclosed without permission.
It’s one more piece of evidence that everything Trump accuses others of doing is a projection of his own behavior.
Recall:
The late William T. Kelley, who taught Trump at the University of Pennsylvania, said, “Donald Trump was the dumbest goddamn student I ever had.” Tony Schwartz, the ghostwriter of “The Art of the Deal,” says Trump had “a stunning level of superficial knowledge and plain ignorance.”
